Trindon Holliday: LSU's Little Guy Is a Freak of Nature

If you are fast and you are a college football player, I apologize, but LSU's Trindon Holliday has to be the fastest college football player around.

Holliday, who is 5'5'' and 165 pounds, looks like a blur from the stands as he races for the end zone. Holliday is also a top ranked American sprinter who competes for LSU.

Holliday doubles as a running back and return specialist. He rushed for 364 yards and two touchdowns on 53 carries and then added 498 yards and one TD on 19 kickoff returns. He also averaged 6.9 yards per rush and 26.2 yards on kickoff returns, and rushed for a career-high 73 yards and a score on six carries against South Carolina last year.

His longest TD came on a 33-yard run. He also carried the ball five times for 45 yards and a TD vs. La. Tech. He returned a kick 98 yards for a score in the win over Ole Miss, and that play earned him SEC Special Teams Player of the Week honors. The return for a TD was the second of his career and ties for the fifth longest in school history.

Holliday's mother wouldn't let him play football until he reached the seventh grade because she was afraid that he would get hurt because he was so small. He was allowed to start at running back in high school his junior year, and during his senior year he racked up over 2,000 yards and over 30 touchdowns.

His high school coaches feared that college recruiters wouldn't believe his recorded running times, so they added to them. Despite his speed, a few colleges rejected him because of his size.  Holliday was never scheduled to appear at LSU's camp.

LSU was interested in another Northeast player (WR Aaron Brown), but that player didn't want to go to the camp alone. So David Masterson, Holliday's high school coach, took Holliday along also.

After initial workouts, Holliday ran the 40 in 4.28 seconds wearing high top basketball shoes. The time was so outrageous that the LSU coaches began arguing if they had started their stopwatches on time. "They asked me if Trindon could run it again," Masterson said.

"He didn't even get in a track stance. He ran the second 40 in 4.27. He's one of those little freaks of nature." Despite this, LSU coach Les Miles still considered canceling Holliday's scholarship offer until holdover offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher convinced Miles that Holliday could play at a college level.

Holliday hopes to rack up more yards and touchdowns this year at LSU.